Over 100 Indonesian election workers people died in the 2024 polls. That is dire in and of itself, but thankfully the mortality rate has come down from over 900 in 2019.
To lift
a man and his party
to the mountain-top,
he steps on the contours
of a thousand upturned faces,
using fingers and toes to clock
hours of votes that flood
counting stations, that stop
only after the opposition is stilled.
At the end,
a man accepts praise,
early declarations of victory
while those who have
added up the legislature of
his new life return to their own,
carrying exhaustion like a flag
listless in the aftermath of a storm;
these votes that remain uncounted.
